Projects awarded funding
Eastern Oregon Healthcare Transformation Project Grants
Baker County
St. Alphonsus Medical Center $120,000
Laura Huggins
This project would place a nurse navigator in the hospital and care coordinators in primary care and behavioral health settings (e.g. Saint Luke’s Clinic- Eastern Oregon Medical Associates, Eagle Cap Clinic and Mt. Valley Mental Health/New Director Northwest) who would function as a team to coordinate care for patients with complex medical conditions. The goals of this project include fewer ER visits, increased access to care and increased preventive screenings (e.g. depression, colorectal cancer, high blood pressure).
Gilliam County
South Gilliam County Health District $109,928
Michael Takagi
The South Gilliam Health District is building a wellness facility attached to the Mid-Columbia Medical Center. EOCCO funds would supply equipment and expert consultation fees to assist in design and layout of the equipment, which would include space for physical therapy, currently unavailable in the region. The facility would be free to patients and the public. Patients would be enrolled by their clinicians, set fitness goals during office visits and receive follow up by clinic staff. Their progress toward physical fitness goals would be tracked in the clinic EMR. The goals of this project are to decrease obesity rates, decrease disease burden and increase access to physical therapy.
Gilliam County $87,600
Teddy Fennern
This project has three components: to address the negative stigma associated with obtaining mental health services by implementing a local media campaign, to support a school counselor position in the Condon School District which is currently without a school counselor, and to address older adult depression by providing a part-time peer mentor in the locations where they receive care (e.g. senior meal sites, Summit Springs and Columbia Hills Manor). The goals of this project are to improve public opinion about the use of mental health services and to increase the supply of mental health services for school-aged children and seniors.
Grant County
Blue Mountain Home Health & Hospice $6,153
Sylvia Dowdy
This project would enable charting and communications with providers in the field for hospice and home health workers by purchasing encrypted tablets. The addition of this technology would reduce travel time for home health and hospice staff to the office for charting. The goal of this project is to increase efficiency so that workers can spend more time with each patient and so patients and their families have a shorter wait time to first visit.
Community Counseling Solutions $103,650
Kimberly Lindsay
Community Counseling Solutions, Strawberry Wilderness Community Clinic, Advantage Dental and Families First propose a health promotion project focused on obesity, oral health and children’s health. The project would consist of monthly educational and participatory group meetings for patients and their families led by health professionals. Also offered would be weekly walking or activity groups. For children, the partners would provide health promotion activities at an existing day camp for children grades K-3. Finally, the project would provide health promotion and screening booths at an annual community event. Primary project goals include engaging high risk community members in developing personalized health plans and increasing health awareness and education among at-risk community members.
Blue Mountain Hospital District $105,000
Carl Flanagan
This project would add five health IT modules to the hospital district’s electronic health record (immunizations interface with state agencies, laboratory report interface, radiology picture archiving and communication system, ePrescribing, provider to provider messaging, reporting system and a patient portal). The grant would also enable necessary hardware purchases. The goals of this project are to improve communication among providers, enable patients to access their information and communicate with their healthcare team and enable reporting on usage and core measures.
Harney County
Harney District Hospital $99,358
Stacie Rothwell
This project would embed a part time LCSW from Symmetry Care into the Harney District Hospital Family Care Clinic. Co-location would enable care management for behavioral health needs within the primary care clinic and referral to Symmetry Care for services. The goals of the project are to achieve a formal process of integrated care between Harney District Hospital and Symmetry Care, increase enrollment of patients in Symmetry Care for mental health care and reduce the number of psychiatric crisis visits to the Harney District Hospital Emergency Department.
Lake County
Warner Mountain Medical Clinic $47,803.35
C. Scott Graham
This project would enable the clinic to obtain PCPCH status for the first time. This would be the only PCPCH recognized clinic in the county. As part of this transformation, the clinic would hire a MSW/LCSW to provide behavioral healthcare services at the clinic one day a month and contract with a dental hygienist to provide dental flouride varnish to 3-6 year olds.
Lake County Mental Health $38,160
Benjamin Paz
To raise awareness of mental health needs and treatment resources, Lake County Mental Health would train staff from the law enforcement community, the medical community, DHS, EMS, school staff and crisis centers using the training program “Mental Health First Aid”. They expect to provide 18 training sessions to a total of 350 individuals. The outcomes are expected to be increased early referrals to mental health services and decreased crisis services.
Lake Health District $73,545
Krista Harrington
This project would create a patient navigation team within the Home Health and Hospice Department to help patients access appropriate care in optimal settings. The team would include a social services worker to enroll patients and coordinate care, a registered nurse to develop care plans, and a patient advocate to coordinate follow up. The target population would be frequent emergency department users due to a non-urgent need and patients with chronic conditions who have been recently hospitalized. The expected outcomes are a decrease of inappropriate use of the emergency department and an increase in patient engagement in and accountability for their own health.
Malheur County
Lifeways, Inc. $59,345
Megan Gomez
This project would provide a school-based adolescent health program at Ontario High School to provide health
promotion and services in the areas of physical health, prevention and wellness, parenting skills, behavioral health and dental screening. Grant funds would be used for a full-time community health worker. The objective of the program is to develop culturally and linguistically competent service delivery, co-management and referral services for school age youth and Hispanic families.
Saint Alphonsus Medical Center $99,149
Leslie Ayhens
This project would transform post-discharge care for emergency department patients with mental health and substance use disorders and reduce excessive emergency department use by providing customized navigation services to meet medical and behavioral health treatment needs, and reducing social, psychological and financial barriers to care. The goal of the project is to reduce emergency department readmissions among EOCCO members by effectively transitioning patients to outpatient behavioral health services, primary care and community supports.
Malheur County Health Department $53,230
Rebecca Striker
This project, a collaboration of the Health Department and Lifeways, would develop a community health worker program for the county. Activities included in the proposal are to coordinate a county-wide training on the 80-hour “We Are Health” Community Health Worker (CHW) curriculum for up to 25 local agency staff and community leaders, conduct a local campaign to identify and recruit a culturally and linguistically diverse set of “natural helpers” based in the community, and create and administer a flex fund to support child care, travel costs, scholarships, stipends, and meeting expenses for the training project attendees.
Morrow County
Morrow County CAC $99,805
Sheree Smith
This project would create and inter-disciplinary community care team and hire two nurse care managers to mobilize community resources and address unmet health needs for women and children. The focus of the care team would be prenatal care, well-child checks including behavioral health services and developmental screening for underserved children and pregnant women. The care team would be comprised of Morrow County Health Department and Juvenile Services, Umatilla Morrow county Head Start and WIC, Morrow County and Ione School Districts, Morrow County Health District, Columbia River Community Health Services, Morrow County Veteran’s Services/Senior and Special
Transportation, Advantage Dental, Oregon DHS Self-sufficiency Program, Community Counseling Solutions, Oregon State University Extension, Hispanic community liaison and Morrow County Sheriff’s Office. The goals of this project are to improve access to prenatal care, well-child checkups including behavioral health services, and developmental screening for underserved children age 0-18 and pregnant women.
Sherman County
North Central Public Health District $27,773
Teri Thalhofer
This project would provide home visits from a public health nurse to provide services and care coordination. The target population would be chronically ill, high utilizers of healthcare services in the Sherman County Medicaid population. Referrals to the program would come from clinicians at the Moro Clinic, the Sherman County Ambulance Service, and eventually the Mid-Columbia Medical Center discharge planning and emergency department staff. The goals of the project are to decrease emergency department utilization and hospital readmission.
Umatilla County
Yakima Valley Farm Workers Clinic $100,000
Brian Williams
This project would improve access to behavioral health services by co-locating a behavioral health clinician in the Mirasol Family Health Center in Hermiston. The target population would be underserved patients with chronic conditions and behavioral health disorders. The goals of the project include increasing access to behavioral health services, implementing SBIRT, improving behavioral health outcomes and increasing patient satisfaction.
Good Shepherd Health Care Systems $91,290
Juli Gregory
In collaboration with the Community Action Program East Central Oregon, Umatilla Public Health and the Hispanic Advisory Committee, this project would create a workforce of community health workers who would conduct
community outreach, assist with health promotion and coaching, case management, referrals, follow-up services and basic health screenings. The overall goal of the project is to reduce health disparities among low-income families, children, the elderly and racial/ethnic minorities.
Lifeways, Inc. $88,118
Rick George
This project would hire two 1.0 FTE community health workers focused on behavioral health services to be housed at the Umatilla County Public Health Department to provide care coordination at the St. Anthony and Good Shepherd Emergency Departments. One FTE would be paid for by Lifeways and the Umatilla County Health Department. The focus of the community health workers would be on patients in the emergency departments that appear to have active behavioral health or crisis issues. Services would include crisis intervention, SBIRT, and case management. The goals of the project are to reduce readmissions and effectively transition patients to outpatient behavioral health services, primary care and community supports and to provide training to the ED staff using Mental Health First Aid.
Union County
Community Connection of Northeast Oregon $67,745.36
Margaret Davidson
This project would expand an existing transportation call center to facilitate same-day healthcare appointments and pharmacy deliveries to outlying communities in very rural areas of Union County, Oregon. The goals of this project are to reduce the rate of missed appointments due to lack of transportation and increase the rate of same day deliveries of medication to communities not served by a pharmacy.
Center for Human Development, Inc. $36,838
Carrie Brogoitti
This project would implement a social marketing campaign targeting primary factors for low weight births in Union County, OR: tobacco use by pregnant women and periodontal disease in pregnancy. The LCAC would be responsible for developing the marketing campaign. The objectives of the project are to increase timeliness of prenatal care, increase availability of and utilization of preconception and interconception health care services, increase access to health insurance and PCPCH medical homes, and decrease tobacco use and periodontal disease by pregnant women.
Wallowa County
Wallowa County $22,352
Stephen Kliewer
This project would provide physical education programming & nutrition education for children who are currently not engaged in activities outside the home on Fridays due to the four-day school week. “Fit Fridays” would provide health promotion and physical activity sessions for 5th through 8th graders on 16 Fridays throughout the school year. “SwimFit”
would provide health promotion and swimming lessons also on Fridays. Numerous community partners have agreed to help provide programs or space, including: Wallowa Resources, Wallowa Valley Network of Care, Community
Connection, Wallowa Mountain Medical, Winding Waters Clinic, Wallowa Valley Center for Wellness/US Forest Service, Nature Conservancy, Community Parks, Wallowa County ESD, Eagles’ View Inn, Extension Office, Trauma Nurses Talk Tough. The goals of the project are to decrease the percentage of overweight children by increasing knowledge about nutrition and diet and fostering healthy behaviors.
Wallowa Memorial Hospital $40,500
Kenneth Rose
This project would implement the Complete Health Improvement Program (CHIP) an 18 session education program developed by the Lifestyle Medicine Institute. The sessions are a combination of live and video-lectures, Q &A sessions, reading assignments with a text book and work book, along with different workshops such as cooking classes,
demonstrations of plant-based meals, food shopping tours, and clinical breakout sessions. The target population would be the middle to upper age population who are more likely to be suffering from one or more chronic diseases. The goals of the CHIP program are to adopt healthier lifestyle habits and decrease utilization of healthcare services.
Wheeler County
Wheeler County CAC $58,264
James Carlson
For this project, the CAC would implement a health education and outreach campaign and an exercise incentive program. The education campaign would focus on cancer screening, early childhood screenings, exercise promotion, depression screening and treatment options for alcohol and drug abuse. The CAC plans to use local newspapers, community radio, direct mail and a health fair to distribute health promotion materials. The exercise program would use tablet computers with an exercise and diet tracking application which would be provided to 50 individuals enrolled in the program. The project is in partnership with the Asher Community Health Center.
